


A Bite To Remember

by Red Charade (traciller)



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fix-It, Lori Grimes (mentioned) - Freeform, M/M, Nobody stays dead, POV, Pre-Slash, Resurrection, Rick's POV, Zombie Cure, past Lori Grimes/Shane Walsh - Freeform, pre-a lot of things probably, reverse zombie, shane lives AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-31
Updated: 2018-03-31
Packaged: 2019-04-16 07:31:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14159844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/traciller/pseuds/Red%20Charade
Summary: Shane dies and becomes a walker. Carl doesn't take the shot. Things take a drastic, strange and surprising turn.





	A Bite To Remember

Rick hadn’t realized why Shane was leading him out into the woods, up onto this hill. In the back of his mind, he’d known something was up. He just hadn’t realized Shane was taking him up here for a showdown, for a duel to the death. Maybe a fight, maybe a loud argument, somewhere they could be alone and finally, truly hash out their feelings and get to the bottom of things.

He’d been so pissed, at both Shane and Lori, but not for the reasons people probably thought. He didn’t feel cheated on, he didn’t feel betrayed because Lori had gotten together with his best friend. He didn’t feel betrayed that Shane had gotten together with Lori. Or that they’d made a baby. They had thought Rick was dead. What expectation could there have been that he would’ve survived, alone and unconscious and helpless, in that hospital room dependent on medicine and an IV and machines to keep him alive?

No, he never blamed them for leaving him behind or for giving him up for dead. He didn’t blame them in finding comfort in each other, finding love together, or being a family together with Carl. And he didn’t blame them for the baby Lori’s carrying, not in any kind of accusatory way. At least he knew Shane, trusted Shane, and he’d kept Lori and Carl safe. If he really had died, that’s how he would’ve wanted it.

Rick’s problem was with the secrets and the lying, their whispers and talks behind his back. Like he was a goddamn idiot and as though they couldn’t trust him. Though, maybe there was a little jealousy there from Rick, but not...in the way either Shane or Lori thought, there, either. 

Not knowing how to tell him the truth, initially, or just wanting to wait awhile? That he could understand. But, as time went on it became clear that they had no intention of ever telling him the truth.

The fact that it got this far wasn’t just their fault, though, and he knew that. It was his own fault, too. He knew something was up, and he figured out what it was pretty fast. But, he hadn’t said anything. He just let things fester. Fester between them, fester between Lori and himself, fester between himself and Shane. Instead of talking, they pretended nothing was going on and he let it continue like that. He and Shane got into fights, did some dangerous shit, even with walkers around. That bus fiasco? God, right then they both should’ve realized that this was untenable and couldn’t go on and goddamn stupid on top of everything else.

But, they hadn’t. They’d all kept quiet and stayed angry and continued to worry about where it was going to go next.

Rick supposed he should’ve known, especially after the bus incident, that this was getting dangerous and was going to come to a head sooner or later. That somebody, one of them or both of them, was going to get killed. Yet, still he had chosen to think that maybe this was only Shane wanting to talk and air things out, maybe even have tussle or two while they were at it. Air out their thoughts, their feelings, their grievances, and get their anger out all at the same time.

But, those alarm bells should’ve gone off that this was more than that. Shane wasn’t acting right, not even for being upset and not looking forward to an argument or a confession. Something was just...very, very wrong.

It was Shane, though. So, Rick’s alarm bells either didn’t sound in the way they would’ve with anyone else, or they did but were so faint that Rick ignored them. Or, more likely, he heard them loud and clear but mistook their message.

So, when he found himself with the knife in his hand and hot blood covering his arm, and he realized that it was Shane’s blood and the feeling in his hand was the residual feeling of having experienced the feeling of a knife slicing through fabric and flesh to provide a deep, deep wound in a very bad place.

Had he caught an organ? Was it an important one? A lung, the...the heart? Did he knick an artery? Sever one?

He couldn’t tell. His brain was going too fast and too slow at the same time, and all he could do was stare in shock and then try to comfort Shane. His best friend. His dying best friend, dying because of him. Dying because some stupid, petty bullshit was allowed to fester and now it was all bleeding out on the ground. On Rick’s hand.

So much blood, and yet, still, somehow it seemed like not enough blood.

And somehow, when it seemed like 100 years and only ten seconds had passed all at the same time, it was over and Shane wasn’t there anymore. He was there, but not there. What had been Shane was gone, leaving only the flesh and the bone and the festering blood behind.

All because of Rick.

He wanted to scream and to cry and to beat his chest and the ground, and to beat the life back into Shane’s body, make him open his eyes again, make him talk to him again, make things better. He wanted a second chance.

God, he wanted so many second chances. How could this turn out this wrong in the course of only a few months?

He really only needed one second chance, though. One chance, one chance to stop being stubborn, to stop waiting and to be proactive. To confront his wife and his best friend and tell them he knew what they’d been hiding and he wanted to talk about it. Insist on talking about it, not allowing it to be pushed aside anymore. Figure out how to make things right, together. That’s all that had needed to happen, for one of them, just one, to come forward and not allow things to fester anymore. To open the wound and let the infection flow out, clean the wound out. So that Shane’s blood didn’t have to flow all over the dying, frosted grass on this moonlit hill.

Then, all too soon, or maybe after thousands of years, Rick heard a noise, a voice, and he turned to see his son standing there. God. How long had Carl been there? Had he seen the whole thing? Had he watched his father kill the person who had been like a favorite uncle to him since birth, who had been a stepfather to him since the world ended until Rick came back from the dead, alive and well against all odds and all sense?

He stood up, turned his back on Shane’s body, at once one of the most difficult things he’s ever done and also one of the easiest...it hurt to look at him and there was some relief in turning away, but the guilt and the regret were things he couldn’t turn his back on. It felt like he was leaving his best friend alone in the cold. At the same time, he felt like he had no right to feel these things, because he was the reason Shane was cold and lifeless on the ground.

“Carl--”

He didn’t get further than that, though, when he saw the look on his son’s face, saw him draw his gun, saw him aim it. Was Carl afraid of him now?

But, no, it wasn’t him. He wasn’t the one Carl was aiming at, he wasn’t the one Carl was afraid of. It dawned on him a second too late, the guttural sound of a walker right behind him, and suddenly he was being grabbed, pulled, leaned over.

There was no time for Carl to shoot, he didn’t have a clean enough shot to risk it. More than likely, all he’d end up doing would be shooting Rick. Making him smell like even more of a banquet to the walker that was once Shane Walsh and handicapping him from being able to properly defend himself in the process, if not outright kill him instead.

There was some part of Rick, though, that was glad Carl didn’t have a clean shot, couldn’t shoot. Or maybe was too hesitant, too afraid. He was just a child and shouldn’t have to deal with this, he shouldn’t have to watch this at all let alone watch what happened between Shane and Rick on this hill before. And he damn sure shouldn’t have to be responsible for shooting Shane himself, walker or not.

Well, Rick had initially anticipated he’d be tussling with Shane, had wished that’s all they’d done up here, and now he was getting his wish in a terrible way. Like wishing on a monkey’s paw, his wish came true but it was fouled.

Here he is, up here on this hill, tussling with Shane’s reanimated corpse, unable to get enough distance between them to risk reaching down for his gun, unable to remember if he still had his gun in the holster. And he had no chance to even check, let alone grab it and use it if it was. Not if he wanted to avoid getting bit.

This was his fault, even now, even in this dire situation, he was struck by that. Shane was one of those things, that doctor from the CDC was right and he should’ve listened, and more than that...more than that, if it weren’t for him then Shane wouldn’t be like this. Wouldn’t be one of those things, wouldn’t be a walker. This is probably the last thing Shane ever wanted to have happen to him, he never would’ve wanted to become this. He would’ve killed himself if he’d been bit to avoid it, Rick knew his best friend well enough to know that. Yet, because of Rick, here he was...a walker.

Maybe it was because Rick hadn’t been ready for it, had been surprised by his best friend turning into a walker and practically falling on him, hungry and desperate for a toxic bite, mindless and groaning his hunger, the feel of his dead skin, the sight of Shane’s deathly pallor under the light of the moon, but somehow he stumbled and fell and went down onto the ground, the thing that had been his best friend falling with him.

God, he wasn’t going to get bit by Shane was he? Right in front of Carl? Please, don’t let it be so.

Down on the ground was the worst place to be when struggling with a walker, though. Especially if you were already distracted beyond measure by your own thoughts and couldn’t get your head in the game as it was. Rick was doing his best, and had so far kept Shane’s mouth, his teeth, away from his skin, foiled all bite attempts so far, but he was getting tired. Walkers never got tired, that was just a trait for the living. Walkers would never tire and would never stop trying.

He flashed on that memory of when he was first out of the hospital, when he found that little girl’s bicycle and the walker right beside it. Bisected and still crawling on its hands trying to get at Rick, desperately hoping for a bite from him. He flashed on memories of decapitated walkers, walkers who had had their heads severed entirely from their bodies but no wound to their skull, and the way they kept moving their jaws, kept trying to bite, unable to move in any other way waiting for something to fall into their mouth.

Walkers never stopped, Shane wouldn’t tire out as a walker the way that he would’ve while alive. The way Rick was tiring out right now. That’s when Rick finds himself biting down on Shane’s arm. He doesn’t really…intend to. It just happens, it’s instinct to try to hurt the person who has you on the ground and is on top of you trying to hurt you, trying to kill you. And sometimes you fight dirty when that happens, and if somebody’s arm or hand is in the right spot sometimes your teeth clamp down without a whole lot of conscious thought on your own part.

Rick had expected it to be ineffective, because walkers don’t care about being bitten. They don’t care about anything else. And again his mind flashes on that bisected walker on the ground when he first woke up from his coma and ventured outside and found the bike, how it crawled on its arms in vain determination.

But, that’s when the unexpected happens. Once again, Rick was wrong. Shane falls off of him, falls down, as if being bitten dazed him. It? He’s not sure what to call someone you knew, someone you loved so incredibly much, when they become one of these things.

Sitting up, confused and breathing heavy, watching the walker that used to be Shane Walsh with a horrified, morbid fascination as it just...lies there for a moment, mouth gnashing slowly before the corpse suddenly goes into convulsions.

He can’t help it, Rick jumps up because what in the hell is going on? And he feels this strange mixture of relief that maybe this was over, confusion about what was even happening in the first place, and wanting to help. 

Shane being dead doesn’t mean Rick doesn’t want to help him. He gets why some people have a hard time accepting that the walking dead are literally dead. It’s difficult to square that with the fact that they’re still up and moving around, that they appear to be thinking on some level even if they probably aren’t. And Rick is finding out first-hand, in horrible ways tonight, how much harder it is for your brain to accept that the dead are dead when the dead is someone you knew and loved with all your heart.

He only glances away from the convulsing corpse of his best friend, the best man he ever knew, when he hears a sound behind him. The unmistakable sound of the hammer of a revolver being drawn back. Was it really so quiet now that he could hear such a sound? Everything, even the air itself, seemed so loud to Rick’s ears right now.

“Carl, no, I...I don’t know what’s going on. I can handle this now, go find your mom,” Rick says, because no matter what he never intended for his son to see any of this. The world is terrible enough now and he’s already seen so much and he’ll have to see so much more. He shouldn’t have to see Shane like this. He shouldn’t have had to see what happened before Shane died. He shouldn’t have had to watch him get back up. And he sure as hell shouldn’t have to shoot him. That man had been like an uncle to Carl from birth, and later when Rick was gone he’d been like a father. He knew Shane loved Carl like his own son. He wouldn’t have wanted Carl to be witness to all of this, any part of this, either.

“But…” Carl wasn’t sure what to say. He was so like Rick in a lot of ways, that quiet stoicism was definitely something he got from Rick. Right now it sometimes manifested in awkwardness, not knowing how to word what he wanted to say or what he was feeling and so he was often at a loss for words. Rick remembered that stage of his own life, too, a young boy with too many thoughts and too many feelings and never sure how to express them. But, he hadn’t had to go through half of what Carl’s had to go through and he’s in awe of his son and his son’s strength. And he mourned that his son shouldn’t have to be so strong at this age. Shouldn’t have to endure even a fraction of what he has.

But he did, and does, because that’s the way the world is now.

“No buts. Go find your mom, tell her…tell her I’ll be back soon.” Rick wasn’t sure what else to say. What could he ask his son to tell Lori besides that? It wasn’t Carl’s job to deliver news like this, he shouldn’t have to walk back to camp, on top of everything else, and worry about what he’s going to tell his mom about Shane. About Rick and Shane.

“DAD!” Carl yelled, bringing his gun back up and causing Rick to quickly turn back around to look at Shane.

He couldn’t believe he’d turned his back on a walker for so long, even if it was Shane, even if he didn’t want to see Shane like that, even if he had a lot on his mind, none of these were excuses.

Except Shane wasn’t doing any of those things. He was rolled over onto his side, clutching at the wound that had killed him what was probably only minutes before but which already felt like days ago. Rick thought again about how walkers didn’t feel pain, or if they did they never acknowledged it.

It was dark and he only had the moonlight to go by, but it was full and bright and they were in what amounted to a clearing right here and that moonlight shone down well enough that he felt like he could see enough to say with some confidence that Shane’s skin didn’t look like the skin of a walker. There was no deathly pallor, no white and blue where it should be on a corpse, and what he could see of Shane’s face looked to be contorted in pain, not the black, slack-jawed stare he’d had moments ago.

“God…goddammit…shit…Rick, what’s goin’ on? Did I faint? Oh fuck, it hurts.”

When he heard that, Rick was immediately on his knees before he’d realized he’d even moved and was grabbing Shane, trying to get him to lie back, taking off clothes, he’s not sure what came off of his back but he pressed it to the wound. “Shane…Shane, you…I don’t…how??”

Of course, none of that answered Shane’s question and he gave a confused, pained stare at Rick to convey this.

“No, no. It’s. I’ll explain later. Shh, you’re okay, you’re gonna be okay. Don’t talk. Carl, go back to camp, run as fast as you can. Tell them Shane’s been hurt bad and I need help getting him back to camp, he can’t walk. Go, scoot!” Rick yelled, hating to shout at his son right now, but at least it might be good news he goes back with. Shane isn’t dead, he isn’t a walker. Not right now. They’ll sort that out, and they’ll sort out how the wound that killed him hasn’t killed him again yet, later.

Right now, all of his focus is on Shane and getting him stable, getting him well. There will be time for talk later, time for explanations and to figure out what’s going on. Time to talk about all of their problems they had refused to talk about until they ended up here on this hill tonight.

Maybe, it wasn’t too late to be a family again after all. To make everything right. Maybe he really will get his second chance. They’ll get their second chance, all three of them. And maybe they knew how to save the world, now, too. But all of that, even the world, had to wait until he was sure Shane was safe.

Maybe there was no monkey’s paw, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> This post, and the tags therein, is what ended up inspiring this fic: http://wokenromanreigns.tumblr.com/post/172122279335/writerlymagic-writing-prompt-s-the-zombie
> 
> It inspired me to try to write a prompt, which somehow morphed into a fanfic halfway through. That can be found here: https://redcharade.tumblr.com/post/172123688556/a-bite-to-remember
> 
> As you can see, a good chunk of it does remain in the fic I wrote for AO3, but there was also a good portion that just...wasn't going to work because you could see very clearly it wasn't intended to be a fic until at least halfway through, so I had to fix that. I tried to tweak the parts I kept the same so that they fit with the tone and flow of this new fic, and I hope I succeeded at least marginally well at that.
> 
> Anyway, I know this is weird but I hope that you still liked it. :)


End file.
